


Beyond

by pikestaff



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Acceptance, Dreams, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, unrequited Male Mahariel/Tamlen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 06:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9535460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pikestaff/pseuds/pikestaff
Summary: In the midst of the Fifth Blight devouring Ferelden and on the brink of the edge of the world, Theron Mahariel's childhood friends come to him in a dream.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is far from my usual fare, and as such I don't expect this to get many kudos or hits, which is fine - I'm writing this for myself. One year ago today a couple of people talked me into buying Dragon Age: Origins. I didn't know that stepping into Thedas for the first time that night would result in being part of a new fandom (which I love) and making a ton of new friends, but here we are. So I wanted to write an ode to my [first ever Warden](http://68.media.tumblr.com/900e0fb718c1d7e1e6c8b205b79f2297/tumblr_o1vzbt9wpy1ulgolmo1_1280.jpg). I am mostly DA2 trash these days, but DA:O will always be my favorite. ❤️

Sometimes, between the insistent nightmares and the sweet song of the Archdemon, Theron Mahariel would dream.

This particular dream began with halla leaping deftly through fog, and once Theron saw them he scrambled after them. Hahren Paivel told him that when elves passed away, it was halla who led them to the afterlife. And now Theron briefly wondered if he was dead, if the darkspawn had won, if the Blight had covered the land and taken him with it. He wondered this, but then he decided he could figure the details out later. For now there were halla, and he chased them into the mist and when he came out of it again he was in a forest clearing and staring at a mirror.

Next to the mirror were his two closest childhood friends, Tamlen and Merrill.

Merrill was small and waiflike but had the deepest and brightest eyes. They’d grown up together and she’d always called Theron by his last name, which he found endearing. She hadn’t always been a part of the clan— she’d come from another— but she had been there almost as long as Theron could remember.

And then there was Tamlen. He always rounded out the trio of troublemakers. He had a smile that was lopsided and infectious and usually made Theron want to try to make him smile even more. He… often thought that he felt a certain way about Tamlen, but he was also fairly certain that Tamlen did not feel that way in return, and this muddled his own feelings about things but ultimately his desire to spend time with his friend overrode any of those feelings.

Theron was reasonably certain, now, that none of this was real, but he couldn’t quite break out of the dream and return to reality, so he decided to play along with it. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’ve made the eluvian work,” said Merrill. “The mirror.”

“Work?” Theron remembered now. He and Tamlen had found the mirror, buried deep in some ruin. It had unleashed some sort of evil, and it had made him sick and it had taken Tamlen away. They never found Tamlen again after that.

But here he was, standing here, smirking a bit. “Merrill’s smarter than both of us combined,” Tamlen said. “We should have brought her with us in the first place.”

“I… don’t know if fixing it was a good idea,” said Theron. His thoughts were muddled here in the dream, but he clearly remembered the aftermath of messing with the mirror last time.

“No,” said Merrill. “It’s fine. I’ve cleansed it. And I’ve figured out what it does. It’s a doorway to another world.”

“Another world?”

“Yes,” said Merrill. “That’s what eluvians do. I wasn’t sure, at first, but now I’m sure.” She looked over at him with those bright eyes. “I think you’re the one who’s supposed to go through it.”

“Me? Why?” Theron still couldn’t shake the thought that this was all a very bad idea.

“Look,” said Merrill, turning towards the mirror.

So, cautiously, Theron approached. The surface of the mirror was shimmering like the surface of a brook on a summer’s day. But through it, he thought he could see something. He narrowed his eyes.

He saw himself. But rather than wearing the traditional hunter’s garb of the Dalish, he was in shining blue and silver armor. It was all familiar, somehow, but his dream self wouldn’t tell him how.

“See,” said Merrill. “You’re there. But… neither Tamlen or myself is.”

“Theron,” said Tamlen, and he looked away. “If you go through, you won’t see either of us ever again.”

“What? Who said anything about going through?” Theron was suddenly very adamant about this. “I’ll stay here. With you.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to stay here,” said Merrill. “And honestly I don’t know if all of this is quite real. I think this might be the Beyond. But either way, you can’t stay.”

“Why not?”

“Theron,” said Tamlen. He looked up at him now. His eyes were piercing, and Theron could never stand it when he looked at him like that. “Listen. You have something important that you need to do. I don’t know what, exactly, but it’s… it’s going to save the clan, and it’s going to save more than just the clan. It’s important. And you know I don’t say that very often.”

“But… what about the two of you?” He looked at his friends. They’d said they would never see him again. Did that mean…

“We’ll be fine,” said Tamlen.

“But I never found you after…” Theron’s voice trailed off as he thought back to that first, fateful day that they’d found the mirror.

“I’m finished with this world, I’m afraid,” Tamlen replied. He smiled that crooked smile of his again. “Merrill has some important things to do, herself, so she will still be around.”

“But you said I won’t see her again?”

“I’ll be somewhere else,” Merrill said now. “I’m not sure where, yet. Not here, though. Not with you.”

Theron looked down. He thought he heard a song of some sort in the back of his mind. It was reminding him that none of this was quite real, even if it felt like it was. And yet, somehow, he believed the words that the echos of his friends were telling him. Their shadows were real, even if they themselves were not.

He approached the mirror, slowly, and placed a hand up to it. Sure enough, he could feel his hand melting into it. It truly was a doorway, as Merrill had said. He stood back and looked at his friends again. If what they were saying was true, this would be the last he ever saw of them.

“Merrill…” he began.

Merrill laughed. “Don’t worry, Mahariel,” she said. “I’ll miss you, but I will be fine.”

Theron turned to face Tamlen. “Tamlen?”

Tamlen looked at him, and his face was bright, and suddenly Theron had to know. If this was all a dream of some sort, then it wouldn’t hurt to ask, right?

“Say,” said Theron, and he smirked a bit himself. “Do you think anything would have ever… you know… between you and me…?”

Theron laughed lightly, but he was laughing with him, not at him. “Between us? It wouldn’t have worked. But you’ll find someone. Handsome guy like you? No problem. Trust me.”

Theron trusted him, and he put his hand up to the mirror again and then he was gone.

  


When he woke, he was in in his tent in camp. It was cold and dark— the middle of the night— but he was wide awake, now, and eventually he stood and left the tent. He stretched and looked around. Everyone else was asleep, except for the mabari he’d adopted, who looked up at him with a concerned whine.

Theron smiled at him and patted his head, and looked out through a clearing in the dark woods that surrounded them into a field. The night was calm and the full moon shone down on grass that waved gently in the breeze.

And for the first time since Ostagar, he thought things might be okay.

…and maybe he’d even get to know that Antivan elf they’d recently picked up.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at http://pikestaff.tumblr.com !


End file.
